You dont have to sort the entire list. Use bubble sort and run the inner loop just 2 times with if condition as below for (int i = 0; i a[j]) swap(a[j-1], a[j]); return a[1]; One needs to think about those scenarios where there are duplicates like 5,3,2,3,1,2,1. The above function will return 1. So better to ask interviewer before implementing.

remove duplicates from the array, sort in asc order, and get the key second one from the beginning

O(n) solution: int secondLargest(int[] nums, int n) { if (n second && num > first) { second = first; first = num; } else { second = num; } } return second; }

O(n) solution: int secondLargest(int[] nums, int n) { if (n second && num > first) { // if number is greater than both second = first; first = num; } else { second = num; // if num is between first and second } } return second; }